structure which we call "projection".1 With equal primordiality the understanding projects Dasein's Being both upon its "for-the-sake-of-which" and upon significance, as the worldhood of its current world. The character of understanding as projection is constitutive for Being-in-the-world with regard to the disclosedness of its existentially constitutive state-of-Being by which the factical potentiality-for-Being gets its leeway [Spielraum]. And as thrown, Dasein is thrown into the kind of Being which we call "projecting". Projecting has nothing to do with comporting oneself towards a plan that has been thought out, and in accordance with which Dasein arranges its Being. On the contrary, any Dasein has, as Dasein, already projected itself; and as long as it is, it is projecting. As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the character of understanding as projection is such that the understanding does not grasp thematically that upon which it projects—that is to say, possibilities. Grasping it in such a manner would take away from what is projected its very character as a possibility, and would reduce it to the given contents which we have in mind; whereas projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such.2 As projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities.
Because of the kind of Being which is constituted by the existentiale of projection, Dasein is constantly 'more' than it factually is, supposing that one might want to make an inventory of it as something-at-hand and list the contents of its Being, and supposing that one were able to do so. But Dasein is never more than it factically is, for to its facticity its potentiality-for-Being belongs essentially. Yet as Being-possible, moreover, Dasein is never anything less; that is to say, it is existentially that which, in its
1 'Entwurf'. The basic meaning of this noun and the cognate verb 'entwerfen' is that of 'throwing' something 'off' or 'away' from one; but in ordinary German usage, and often in Heidegger, they take on the sense of designing' or 'sketching' some 'project' which is to be carried through; and they may also be used in the more special sense of projection' in which a geometer is said to 'project' a curve 'upon' a plane. The words 'projection' and 'project' accordingly lend themselves rather well to translating these words in many contexts, especially since their root meanings are very similar to those of 'Entwurf' and 'entwerfen'; but while the root meaning of 'throwing- off' is still very much alive in Heidegger's German, it has almost entirely died out in the ordinary English usage of 'projection' and 'project', which in turn have taken on some connotations not felt in the German. Thus when in the English translation Dasein is said to 'project' entities, or possibilities, or even its own Being 'upon' something, the reader should bear in mind that the root meaning of 'throwing' is more strongly felt in the German than in the translation.
2 '... zieht es herab zu einem gegebenen, gemeinten Bestand, wahrend der Entwurfim Werfen die Möglichkeit als Möglichkeit sich vorwirft und als solche sein lässt.' The expression 'einem etwas vorwerfen' means literally to 'throw something forward to someone', but often has the connotation of 'reproaching him with something', or 'throwing something in his teeth'. Heidegger may have more than one of these significations in mind.